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ARCHITECTURAL STYLES AND FEATURES
The Lion House is a rare Egyptian variation of the Greek Revival design. It is a two storied building, which rises from a raised basement (three stories high). She is designed to look massive. She features six tall Corinthian columns. The capitals are the Greek Tower-of-the-Winds design and are hand carved wood. A flying balcony is over the lighted glass door. This entrance door is ornamented by Minard Lefever’s original variations taken from his book "The Beauties of Modern Architecture", 1835. These designs are carried out on the first floor grand hall and the double parlors. They are very rare and precious, especially for a Greek Revival house. Pilasters mark the corners of the house, an 18th century device, used for marking off wood sidings to suggest rustication or leveled stone courses. Although this was rarely used in the Georgia Piedmont area, it was used on this house
The Egyptian variations come in two forms: The windows and the doors of the main floor are designed with trim that splays out at the bottom. It is a subtle sloping of the trim and it is wider at the base than at the top. You will see this on the front windows and in all of the doorways and windows of the first floor and the window lighting the circular staircase at the end of the grand hall. This is a rarely used design and I have never seen it on another house in this area.
The other Egyptian variation is in the Lions who guard the front entrance. They are a Nubian design. Nubia is an area in the southern portion of Egypt. It is actually a worthless desert area. I have a section dedicated to the Lions.
The Grand Hall is designed to be very showy and breathtaking when the visitor first enters. The hall is divided by two tall columns with the Tower-of-the-Winds design, a curved arch and two small niches on either side above the columns. At the end of the hall is the staircase. It gracefully ascends to the second floor in a continuous horseshoe pattern. Large wall niches are designed into the curved wall of the staircase. The decorations over the hall doors are of the lotus leaf and honeysuckle and include medallions and fleur-de-lis designs. The double parlors are no less showy. The large pocket doors are surrounded by the same decorations and features windows that reach from the floor to over nine feet in height.
The ceilings on the first floor are 14 feet high and give the visitor a feeling of grandness.
Each room features a fireplace. There are twelve in the house. The mantles are made from heart pine and the pilasters on these mantles replicate the pilasters on the front of the house and in the Grand Hall. The fireplaces were designed to burn wood. They had been converted into coal burners after the Civil War and were eventually closed off. I have reopened them and checked them for safety. I now enjoy cozy fires.
The floor plan and construction of the Lion House are very straightforward and predictable, so restoration of the original floor plan was not difficult. There are three S’s that I refer to when talking about the design. They are Straight lines; Symetry; Simplicity. This style of design calls for straight lines. There are no bay windows, or curves, with the exception of the staircase. The design is simple and predictable. The floor plan calls for a central hall with flanking rooms on either side for all three levels. The symmetry is dominant in the house. Doors look at doors, windows look at windows, and fireplace centered in each room and a mirror image through out the house.
The basic construction of the building is called post-and-beam. This means the house is built like a barn with large posts on the corners of the building and in the center. They hold up large beams. Braces are placed at each post with mortise-and-tenon and secured into place with large wood pegs. The walls are non-load bearing. This type of construction allows for large open rooms and it is very sturdy. The rooms measure approximately 20 feet by 20 feet.